Six rules that will guide NASA’s petition hearing at the Supreme Court

The National Super Alliance (NASA), led by their presidential candidate and ODM leader Raila Odinga, on Friday 18th August 2017 filed a petition at the Supreme Court, seeking to challenge the declaration of Jubilee Party’s Uhuru Kenyatta as president.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission declared Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner of the August 8th presidential election, defeating NASA’s Raila Odinga by over 1.3 million votes.

NASA however disputed the tallying and final results, saying that the IEBC system was hacked and figures manipulated to favour incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The coalition at first had vowed not to go to court but after the issues surrounding the Kenya Human Rights Commission and AfriCoG, they decided to take the case to the Supreme Court.

Seven judges led by Chief Justice David Maraga will be handling the case in court and Raila Odinga has stated that the ruling on this petition will be historic.

IEBC lawyers clashed with NASA’s, with claims of late filing of court document surfacing and the IEBC team sending a letter to NASA lawyer’s questioning the issue. The Opposition lawyers, however, defended themselves, saying that they had received no letter from the IEBC advocates.

Here are some of the rules that will guide the petition hearing:

1. Petitioners should file and serve written submissions on the petition by 1:00 p.m. Friday, 25th August 2017.

2. The respondents should file and serve their written submissions by 7 p.m. Friday, 25th August 2017.

3. Should the petitioner wish to file a rejoinder to the respondent’s written submissions, they should file and serve it by 9 a.m. Saturday, 26th August 2017.

4. Any party wishing to file an application relating to the petition should file and serve their application, together with written submission limited to five pages, by 1:00 p.m. on Friday, 25th August 2017

5. Responses to any such applications should be filed and served together with written submissions by 7:00 p.m. on Friday, August 25th 2017.

6. Any party wishing to be admitted to the petition as amicus curiae should file their application together with the amicus brief by 1:00 p.m. on Friday, August 25th 2017.